Social Innovation and Leadership skills for Third Sector Capacity Building

As stated by European Commission: Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become essential actors in the social field, particularly in the fight against poverty and social exclusion. They engage in regular dialogue with public authorities with a view to ensuring better implementation of EU initiatives and policies in the EU countries. The Europe 2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth sets up a new partnership between the EU institutions, national and regional governments and European stakeholders. The Commission has made it a priority to strengthen these partnerships at European level. However, NGO's and other Third Sector organisations have been particularly affected by the crisis and undergoing radical changes. For example, in Spain, we could witness an increasing number of Non for Profit Institutions (henceforth NPI's) that were forced to close due to a lack of funds and/or incapacity to sustain. While many of the organisations are still quite young and have had little time to consolidate - capacity building has not been an overt agenda.Within the framework of the above described trends, the project aims to:* Create an open and collaborative learning environment to develop the competences and skills of third sector professionals in the field of social innovation and leadership, * Facilitate information and knowledge exchange for TS professionals, as well as to exchange good practices and initiatives on social innovation, impact measurement, leadership and related topics, * Explore new strategies and alternatives in the field of NPI management in order to improve the operational capacity of these organizations, * Promote social leadership as well as the image of NPIs and to exploit the social innovation potential, to deal with the challenges that they face in addition to responding to opportunities. As a final outcome, the project will establish an effective eco-system for the development and implementation of a European Social Innovation and Leadership Curriculum in the consortium partner countries. Once tested and validated the methodologies and curriculum will be packaged into Social Leadership eLab for dissemination across the EU.